6A The Oberlin herald Wednesday, September 30, 2009

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Oberlin downsAtwood 20-16

The Oberlin Red Devils downed the Rawlins County Buffaloes 20-16 in a hard-fought, come-from-behind football contest Friday night in Atwood.

The win puts Oberlin at 3-1 with a loss to Norton and victories over Osborne, Plainville and Atwood.

“It was good,” Coach J.D. John-son said. “We played with some intensity and did a lot better up at the line, offensively and defensively.

“Going into it, that’s where we thought it would be won.”

Oberlin took the ball in the first quarter and went almost all the way, but was stopped four yards from the goal line and had to turn the ball over on downs.

Atwood wasn’t able to do that well and ended up punting on fourth

down to the 34-yard line.Oberlin’s next possession ended

with a fumble, which was recovered by Atwood.

With the ball in hand, the Buf-faloes plowed their way down the field and made the game’s first touchdown. The two-point conver-sion was good, and the home team was ahead 8-0 at the end of the first quarter.

In the second quarter, the teams traded the ball back and forth, with neither being able to move it across the goal line. The half ended with Atwood ahead 8-0.

In the third quarter, Oberlin was finally able to score on an eight-yard run by quarterback Wiley Farr. Farr passed to Toby Peters for a success-ful two-point conversion and the

score was even at 8.After Atwood was unsuccessful

in its next attempt to reach the goal line, Oberlin marched down the field with the help of a long run by Keithen Fortin, and was again able to score in the third quarter on a Farr three-yard run.

The conversion was unsuccess-ful, but now Oberlin led 14-8.

Undaunted, Atwood came back and moved the ball down to the goal line at the beginning of the fourth quarter. The Buffaloes were again able to make the two-point conver-sion and again they led the game,

this time 16-14.However, Oberlin wasn’t done.

Although Atwood was able to get down to the 10-yard line on its next drive, the Red Devils’ defense held.

Oberlin took over and drove down the field. Then Peters ran the ball six yards into the end zone for Decatur Community High’s third touchdown. The two-point conver-sion again failed, but now the Red Devils were ahead 20-16.

Both teams had another try at moving the ball, but neither was able to score again and Oberlin notched

up its third victory of the season.Coach Johnson mentioned Kei-

then Fortin in particular as making some big plays for the Red Devils, racking up 141 yards on nine car-ries.

Other carriers were Farr, 45 yards on 24 carries, Nolan Peters, 37 on four; Dakota Soderlund, 22 on six; and T. Peters, six on one.

In the air, Farr was four out of eight for 15 yards and T. Peters was one out of two for 32 yards.

Farr caught the 32-yard T. Peters’ pass while Soderlund caught three passes for 11 yards and N. Peters

one for four.The Red Devils racked up 251

yards on the ground and 47 in the air. They made 10 first downs, eight rushing, one passing and one by penalty. In contrast, Atwood had 13 first downs, nine rushing and four in the air.

Oberlin returns home Friday night to take on WaKeeney at 7 p.m.

The Golden Eagles are 0-4 this year but they have had some tough opponents, including Smith Center, which beat them 59-0; Goodland, 36-0; Hoxie, 13-12; and Phillips-burg, 39-12.

Volleyball C-teamwins tournament

Cross country boystake seventh place

The Oberlin boys cross-country team came in seventh out of nine teams in the Hill City Invitational on Thursday.

With only four girls running, the Decatur Community High girls did not earn a team score in the competition.

The boys had two runners in the top 15. Tyler Shields took eighth, running the course in 18 minutes, 28 seconds, and Dalton Jones was 12th in 18:53.

Scott City took first with 70 points, followed by Norton, 83; Colby, 85; Hill City, 88; Lakeside, 107; Phillipsburg, 128; Oberlin, 131; WaKeeney, 188; and Osborne, 218.

The Norton girls placed first with 56 points, followed by Lakeside, 68; Osborne, 68; Scott City, 73; Colby, 90; and Hill City, 122.

“We had some good individual performances,” Coach Dick Ahl-

berg said, “but as a team, we were kind of flat.”

Other varsity runners were:• Nolan Wasson, 44th, 20:40.• Kade Brown, 64th, 21:52.• Jacob Helm, 67th, 22.• Ray Zodrow, 73rd, 23:08.• Gatlin Reichert, 74th, 23:15.Running for the girls were:• Tiffany Anderson, 35th, 19:32.• Kaylee May, 45th, 20:19.• Bret Ashley, 53rd, 21:17.• Kira Meitl, 60th, 25:46.Junior varsity runners were:• Nolan Henningson, 12th,

21:49.• Matthew Helm 21st, 23:05.• Hunter Nedland, 43rd, 28:20.“We should be excited to be run-

ning at home next week,” Coach Ahlberg said.

The 42nd Annual Oberlin Invi-tational Cross Country meet was to start at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Oberlin Country Club.

The Decatur Community High varsity volleyball team did not play this week, but the younger girls did the school proud with a first-place finish in Oberlin’s own C-team tournament on Saturday.

“The girls had a good tourna-ment,” said Coach Melissa Dreher. “They communicated well and played aggressive defense.”

It only took Oberlin two games each to beat Quinter, McCook and Colby for the tournament title.

In the first match, Oberlin downed Quinter 25-15, 28-26.

“Oberlin played very well this

match,” Coach Dreher said.The Oberlin girls then made short

work of McCook, downing the Ne-braska girls 25-23, 25-13.

In the final tournament match, Oberlin had to fight hard to over-come a tough Colby team, but the Lady Red Devils downed the Lady Eagles 25-23, 28-26.

The varsity team was to play at home Tuesday against St. Francis and Bird City.

The Annual Oberlin Invitational Volleyball Tournament will kick off at 9 a.m. Saturday in both the high school and junior high gyms.

Young football playersplay at home Saturday

Oberlin fourth, fifth and sixth graders will play their last home games in the Western Kansas Foot-ball League against Ness City on Saturday at Smick Field. Game time is 10:30 a.m. for the fourth-grade team and noon for grades 5 and 6.

The fourth graders’s record is 0-3 with losses to Goodland 32-0, At-wood 34-0 and Phillipsburg 20-0.

The fifth and sixth graders have a 2-1 record after losing to Goodland 24-0 on Saturday. They downed Atwood 12-6 on Sept. 19, and Phil-lipsburg 8-6 on Sept. 12.

The players include:Fourth grade: Kole Breth, Kel

Grafel, Jack Mumm, Drew Juene-mann, Mason Mumm, Zachery Cor-bett, Tyler McHugh, A.J, Zillinger, Reegon Witt, Corey Wurm, David Waterman, Jacob Gee, Alex Hay-ward and Dustin Nichols. They are coached by David Waterman, Greg Grafel and Tim Breth.

Fifth and sixth grades: Noah Nelson, Luke Koerperich, Gatlin Hissong, Kelly Brown, Jeff Juene-mann, Cade Wurm, Dayton Kempt, Andrew Wade, Tabor Erickson, Ma-son Ahlberg, Quinton Cook, Max Diederich, Keagen Blau, Konnor Witt, Justice Harris, Kade Grafel and Myles Scheaffer. Their coaches are John Nelson, Daniel Smith and Tim Breth.

Shane Bird is coordinator and Angie Erickson is contact person for the teams.

Oberlinbeats Hoxie

The Decatur Community Junior High football team downed the boys from Hoxie 28-0 on Thursday at Hoxie.

Three players helped take the ball across the goal and Oberlin were able to make two out of four point-after conversions for extra points.

“The defense had a great day allowing just three first downs,” Coach Joe Dreher said.

Oberlin’s first touchdown came on a seven-yard run by Kennedy Fortin. The two-point conversion came on a pass from Dayton Dreher to Fortin.

Kolton Pauls scored the second touchdown on a 52-yard punt re-turn. The two-point conversion was good on a pass from Dreher to Chris Anderson.

Oberlin’s third touchdown came on a 15-yard pass from Dreher to Grant Gilliam. The two-point conversion failed but Oberlin was ahead 22-0.

Fortin scored again for Oberlin’s last touchdown on a 47-yard run. Again, the two-point conversion failed.

The young Red Devils will pay the Rawlins County Buffaloes at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at home.

Junior high girls win threeThe Oberlin eighth-grade girls

went 3-1 Saturday in the Hoxie Round Robin volleyball tourna-ment.

The girls started out poorly, los-ing the first match to Norton in three games. Norton won the first game 25-14. Oberlin came back and fought hard to take the second 30-28, but Norton was able to win the last game 15-10.

After that, it was all uphill.Oberlin beat Dighton in three,

taking the first and last games 25-19, 15-10 but losing the middle one 25-17.

WaKeeney also took three games to tame, but the young Lady Red Devils downed the girls from Trego County 25-16 in the first set and 15-13 in the last and lost the middle

one 25-17.Hoxie was the last competitor for

Oberlin, and true to form for the day, it took three games. This time Hoxie won the first round 25-12. Oberlin came back strong, however, taking the second and third games 25-22 and 17-15.

“Some of the girls’ success was due to serving over 80 percent for the day,” Coach Gina Witt said. “Improved communication and better use of the ball added to their success.

“The girls never gave up, and it paid off. I am very proud of all the effort from everyone.”

The Decatur Community Junior High girls will be at home on Thurs-day as they take on the Rawlins County Buffaloes at 4:30 p.m.

Sprint cars makelast run around track

By TERRY J. PFEIFERThe United Rebel Sprint Series

made its final appearance of the year at the Decatur County Speedway on Saturday. C.J. Johnson won top points.

Blake Bogenhagen, Cheyenne Wells, Colo., led the field to the green but it was Michael Williams jumping out to the early lead with Ken Lutters, Cody Salem, Josh Fairbank and Willie Wynn rounding out the top five in lap one.

Lutters made quick work of Wil-liams to take over the point on lap two. Salem applied the pressure on Williams for the runner-up spot, but Salem’s mount soon showed smoke down the backstretch and he slowed in turns three and four and rolled to a stop to bring out the only caution of the race.

On the restart, Lutters once again took the lead with Williams in pur-suit. Back in the pack, newcomer Todd Plemons was battling Jon and C.J. Johnson for fifth. Plemons soon found himself on Wynn’s rear bumper and made the pass for the fourth spot on lap five. C.J. quickly made his way to the fifth spot, send-ing Wynn to sixth. With Lutters still showing the way, C.J. made his way to the fourth position on lap six and turned up the heat on Plemons.

Johnson made quick work of Plemons, taking over the fourth spot on lap seven and was pressuring Fairbank for third, making the pass on lap seven. Williams was soon on C.J.’s sights as he made the pass for the runner-up spot on lap nine. Back in the pack, Jon Johnson and Ray Seemann set their sights on fifth, as they joined Plemons for several laps racing each other. The trio soon caught Fairbank, making it a four-way battle for the fourth through seventh positions.

Up front, Lutters and C.J. John-son were hooked up in a battle for the point. Lutters maintained his lead. Behind them, Seemann had made his way past Jon Johnson on lap 15. Seemann then turned his attention to Fairbank and Plemons in the fifth and fourth spots. As the trio waged a battle for position, Jon Johnson took back the seventh spot

on lap 16.Up front, C.J. Johnson had closed

the gap on Lutters and took over the lead on lap 18 as Lutters fell back to the second spot. Williams soon found himself in a battle for the third spot, as Plemons had caught him and was trying to use the low line to take the position away. Jon Johnson caught Fairbank on lap 20 and took fifth. Seemann quickly put the pres-sure on Fairbank for the spot.

Up front, C.J. Johnson had started to pull away from Lutters and built up a substantial lead. In the clos-ing laps, Jon Johnson had caught Plemons, who was holding down the fourth position. Johnson tried to use the high side to his advantage, but Plemons repeatedly held off the challenges as the laps wore down.

When the checkered flag was un-furled, it was C.J. Johnson taking the win, followed by Lutters, Williams, Plemons and Jon Johnson.

The Keizer Aluminum Wheels “Hard Charger Award” went to C.J. Johnson, who came from his ninth-place starting spot to win.

Heat Race Winners were No. 1-Blake Bogenhagen, No. 2-Willie Wynn, No. 3-Ken Lutters

A-Main: 1-C.J. Johnson (45X), 2-Ken Lutters (79), 3-Michael Wil-liams (77W), 4-Todd Plemons (4P), 5-Jon Johnson (86), 6-Josh Fair-bank (51), 7-Ray Seemann (72), 8-Jeff Radcliffe (21R), 9-Willie Wynn (36W), 10-Tim Perkins (99), 11-Ran-dy Bantam (5R), 12-Bill Hays (2H), 13-Reed Bernbeck (C3), 14-Shawn Radcliffe (3R), 15-Cody Keiswetter (38), 16-Chad Salem (17), 17-Tom Belsky (28), 18-Cody Salem (22), 19-Blake Bogenhagen (27B)

Heat No. 1: 1-Blake Bogenhagen, 2-Michael Williams, 3-Todd Plem-ons, 4-Josh Fairbank, 5-Shawn Radcliffe, 6-Chad Salem, 8-Tom Belsky

Heat No. 2: 1-Willie Wynn, 2-C.J. Johnson, 3-Cody Salem, 4-Jon Johnson, 5-Tim Perkins, 6-Randy Bantam

Heat No. 3: 1-Ken Lutters, 2-Reed Bernbeck, 3-Jeff Radcliffe, 4-Ray Seemann, 5-Bill Hays, 6-Cody Keiswetter

TAKING THE BALL FOR A RUN, Oberlin’s Keithen Fortin was confronted by the Atwood defensive line as his

own line worked ahead of him during Friday night’s football game. — Herald photo by Sarah Fredrickson

AN ATWOOD PLAYER tried to take the ball away from Tabor Erickson during a fifth-grade game on Sept. 19. Oberlin won the game 12-6. — Photo by Jean Martin

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